Plaque in South San is delayed by dispute

When South San Antonio Independent School District formally dedicates its new $58 million high school Oct. 19, something will be missing: the customary plaque noting the names of district leaders.

That's because deciding on those names has been a hot potato for seven months, arguably a symbol of the fragile working relationships on the South San board.

According to e-mails obtained through an open records request, South San bond management firm Parsons started prodding district officials in April to decide whose names would go on the 24-by-36-inch cast bronze plaque, noting it would take at least three months to get the roughly $2,000 item in time for the school's planned opening.

South San officials couldn't get a consensus from the board. Policy approved in 1986 says all plaques should list the names of trustees and district leadership “when the contract for such building and/or addition was let.” That might mean 2010, when the bond issue that paid for the school was passed and the first contract was signed for the high school.

Confusion erupted after some trustees argued that several contracts have been signed over the past four years, so the word “let” allows some room for interpretation. Two-thirds of the 2010 names that would have been on the plaque have since changed because of continual board and administrative turnover, including four acting superintendents since the bond issue was passed.

Some trustees want the 2010 board and staff on the plaque, but others on the board wanted their names on it. Board president Rose Marie Martinez eventually pushed to have both groups listed because, she said, “one started it and the other finished it.”

Parsons came up with three versions, and e-mails over several months show their attempts to get a decision, tiptoeing around the subject with administrators.

Trustee Helen Madla challenged Martinez's proposal with a simple e-mail in August to a Parsons project manager: “NOT BOARD POLICY.” She supports the version that wouldn't list her name.

Martinez said Madla's disagreement may be because she lost the board presidency to Martinez in May.

Madla said she is “simply reminding (Martinez) that she should be following board policy” and surmised that Martinez simply wants to assure her name is on the building as the board president.

The plaque is the second time the two have faced off over naming rights in recent months.

Rebecca Robinson, who abruptly resigned as superintendent in July, blaming board dysfunction, said Martinez demanded a few weeks prior to South San's high school graduation that her name be substituted for Madla's on the diplomas as board president.

Robinson sided with Madla, and after Robinson resigned, her replacement, interim superintendent Mourette Hodge, decided to list Martinez on the diplomas of summer graduates.

It's not a new problem for South San. In 2004, after some public outcry, trustees voted to remove the face of former board president Raul Prado from a campus mural after he was convicted of public corruption.

Last year, trustees narrowly approved forming a committee to possibly rename the Durbon Athletic Center, which was named for Ron Durbon, the superintendent whom the board fired in 2011. The center hasn't been renamed.

Martinez said she hasn't decided what to do on the high school plaque. “I don't care anymore if my name's on it,” she said. “We need to get past such petty issues.”